


Drifting

by Rioghna



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 17:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1234591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rioghna/pseuds/Rioghna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scene from Series 2 Adrift.  What happens after Gwen leaves</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Space Between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Gwen leaves, Jack and Ianto talk

The Space Between

 

“Sir.” One little word, three letters, one syllable, and yet Ianto could pack a universe of meaning into it.

Jack paused his angry pacing for a moment and looked out through the glass as the door alarm sounded Gwen’s departure. He did not meet his lover’s eyes. It was not as if he hadn’t known he was wrong the moment he opened his mouth. Ianto didn’t deserve to be talked to like that, and certainly not in front of Gwen. Jack knew his attitude towards sex was a bit casual, but not that casual, not with Ianto. He was angry, frustrated and he used the most direct method he could think of to get rid of her. It didn’t make it any less wrong. The mood was shattered anyway. He sighed, resigned, and began to search the hothouse floor for his shirt and braces, not wanting to meet the look of disappointment in those blue eyes. He was certain in the knowledge that he had failed him, again. Nor did Jack want to show him the anger that he felt. It wasn’t Ianto’s fault that Gwen wouldn’t leave it, and he didn’t want to make things any worse. Jack should never speak to the younger man like that in front of someone else, no matter how frustrated he might be.

“As you said, we have work to do.” Ianto’s voice was almost emotionless as he turned toward the door.

“Can I at least have some of your special coffee?” he asked quietly, leaning against the table as he watched Ianto finished buttoning up his shirt. The younger man nodded and left. Jack stood, noting with a small glimmer of hope the jacket and tie hanging carelessly from the corner of the potting table. Finding his shirt damp in the corner, he pulled it over his head with disgust and headed out to his office feeling old and tired.

Why was it so hard, this balancing act? Trying to walk a tightrope between telling them what they needed to know and protecting them? Of course Ianto knew, and he wanted him to tell her. He was the one who helped Jack with it all, helped him bury the paperwork and cover their tracks. He meant it; there was nothing they could do, not now, not unless Tosh could find a way to predict the negative rift spikes. Until then all they could do was care for them, the refugees that the rift chose to throw back. He went out there when a new one turned up, but never told the rest of the team, never took anyone with him, even Ianto. It was his duty, his penance.

His thoughts were dark and disjointed and he didn’t want to be alone with them. It took a lot of work to keep himself out of that place; a certain amount of help came from the young man who meant more to him that he had words to tell. Besides, he needed to rebuild at least one bridge tonight, keep the promise he made to himself when he came back. “Don’t let it drift,” he had told Gwen, and he decided it was good advice. It wasn’t a life outside of Torchwood, but it was what he wanted, and as close as either he or Ianto were going to get. He had been wrong to use his relationship that way. He knew it. Ianto knew it. Hell, Gwen probably knew it; and that irritated him. Jack needed him, it was that simple.

 

Ianto poured a couple of cups of coffee in the kitchen and considered what he was going to do when he went back. He knew what Jack was doing, probably better than Jack did. Jack was doing what he always did, using what he knew about people to push them away. He had gotten better, much better, and Gwen pushed back, even after Ianto had more or less told her to let him handle it. Jack was a good leader most of the time, but he was still learning when it came to dealing with emotions. Still, Ianto knew that he had gotten the message. He had seen it in those eyes in the hothouse, avoiding his look, as close to embarrassed as it was possible for Jack to be. He would let him hang a little bit, until Jack was ready to talk and to listen.

Ianto was preparing his own cup when his phone went off. Cursing to himself for misplacing his earpiece, he grabbed his mobile before Jack could hear it. He knew who was on the other end without even looking. After all, sometimes if his lover wouldn’t do the right thing, then he had to do it for him. As Jack had told him once, it is sometimes easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. This was one of them.

“Hello,” he said into the phone, trying to balance everything. Gwen, as he knew it would be.

“You left me that package, didn’t you?” Gwen said without preamble. Ianto juggled the phone and the mug, trying to figure out how to get rid of her. After all, he had done his part. He heard Jack call his name in the background.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, hoping she would just leave it. _I should have known better,_ he thought bitterly. He had done enough; the rest was up to her.

“Ianto, what’s going on?”

“Goodnight, Gwen,” he said, as he snapped the phone closed cutting off any further questions. His denial was unconvincing at best, but she wasn’t going to listen to him, and he wasn’t going to get any more involved than he already had. He had other things to deal with after all.

 

“Ianto,” Jack called out, realizing even as he said it how irritated and edgy he sounded. God, this relationship thing was complicated, and he was out of practice. “Ianto”, he called again, trying for something a little lighter. He wondered briefly whether he had driven him away with his anger and callousness. But he knew better: it wasn’t the way the other man did things. Ianto was too reliable for that, in spite of the coldness that opened in his stomach. Then he saw him, mug in each hand, hurrying across the Hub.

Jack stood by the door, smiling in relief as he accepted the cup and gestured for Ianto to make himself comfortable. He took a big sip of coffee and smiled in gratitude.

“Paperwork?” Ianto asked blandly, deliberately neglecting the “sir”. But Jack waved him off, trying to fit the words together. It wasn’t easy. Isolating himself, keeping his own counsel was not only lonely, it was ineffective with the dysfunctional group he led. This team meant so much to him, especially the young man sitting in front of his desk, as habitually alone as he was..

“Ianto, I’m sorry,” he said in one breath, trying to get it all out at once.

“For what, sir?”

 _Damn him,_ Jack thought. Ianto was going to make him spell it out. _Is this some kind of special punishment for being so careless?_ Jack wondered, but he knew he pretty well deserved it.

“For the way I talked to you out there. I just…I was angry and I wanted...”

“You wanted to make her go away without having to discuss things further, so you played on her shame and sense of decorum,” Ianto said, voice still carefully neutral.

“Yes.”

“And if she had followed you, followed us?”

“I didn’t think that far,” he admitted. “I let it get to me, I tried ‘Captain knows best’ and it backfired, again.”

“Might want to reconsider that tactic,” Ianto said mildly.

“Yep,” he said, mirroring the other man’s dry response.

“Why not tell her?”

Jack looked down at him, startled. He didn’t want a fight with Ianto too, but the other man’s face showed no judgment, just a question. Suddenly, the anger just drained out of him and he sat down heavily on the desk in front of Ianto.

“Knowing wouldn’t make it any better, not when we can’t fix them, can’t make it stop happening, or get them all back.” Jack looked down at his hands, not wanting the other man to see how helpless he felt and how much he hated the feeling. “You have never asked.”

“No,” Ianto said softly. “I don’t need to. I see you when you come back and that’s enough.”

“Sorry. It is my burden. I took the responsibility. No one else needs that.”

“Jack.” The younger man stood, hand reaching out reassuringly. Jack leaned into the touch, accepting the comfort he was being offered, though he felt undeserving. “Just don’t shut everyone out again. Don't shut me out.”

Jack nodded, resting his head against Ianto, enjoying the understanding. He was not stupid enough not to recognize the chance he was being given, again. After a moment he felt the soft hand cup his chin and he looked up. “Hmmmm?”

“And next time, I decide where we finish up. Not sure the cleaners can get these…alien grass stains out.”

“Deal, Now about that paperwork?” Jack said, happier than he had been since Gwen had interrupted them.

“Later. I believe we had something else we needed to finish first, sir.” One tiny word, but in the mouth of the right person, three letters could say it all.


	2. Floating Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missing scene from the end of Adrift

Floating Back

Jack slunk back to his desk and his empty office. The hub was eerily quiet, even Myfanwy hiding in her cave up near the roof. Everyone had scarpered almost fleeing at Jack’s curt nod after Gwen came in, her face stricken and her mouth a tight slit that said she didn’t want to talk about it. He cast a tired look at the paperwork waiting on his desk and seriously contemplated a drink or five. Why did she have to be so stubborn? Knowing the truth hadn’t made anyone happier. If Gwen had one failing it was her belief that the truth would always make it all better. Bitterly, Jack knew that was not always the case. People needed their dreams, their illusions.

The alarm of the cog door startled him out of his thoughts as he slammed to alert and back to rest like a ricochet. He would recognize the familiar form of Ianto Jones under any circumstances. That was another thing he would need to deal with. Gwen hadn’t said how she found out about the Island, but he could guess. Only one person knew besides him, Ianto. He should have seen it, the younger man had argued for telling her, if only because she had stepped in as his de facto second in command during his little sabbatical with the Doctor.

While he was gone, Ianto had seen to their needs and supplies, and monitored the situation alone, keeping faith with his errant Captain. The loyalty of it had almost broken Jack when he found out, even when there was no real reason. He had not exactly done his best by his young lover and he knew it, that was why he was so determined to do things right this time. Fortunately the Rift had kindly refrained from returning any of its refugees, so Ianto had been spared the journey, one that if he had his way, the younger man would never have to make. He glanced up, wondering where his lover was and why he hadn’t come over. _Perhaps he has decided you want to be alone,_ he thought. _Or he is avoiding you, figuring you aren’t happy with him._

“Coffee, Sir?” The object of his speculation popped in the door almost as if he had been conjured.

“I thought we had talked about the sir?” he replied, still sorting out his thoughts. He wasn’t happy, but he was not willing to take that much of a backward step, regardless.

“Thought after today I might have had that privilege revoked.” The words were deadpan, but Jack knew him well, well enough to see just a glimmer behind the façade. Jack nodded, not sure what he could or would say, but before he could put thoughts together, Ianto was out the door again.

It was only moments before the office door was pushed open, and Ianto slipped in with two mugs. He hadn’t bothered with the tray, and for some reason that made Jack happier than he had been. It was a little bit of casual that Ianto usually reserved for just the two of them, a sign that maybe this would not be as bad as he thought it was. Because Ianto was right, he was upset, feeling a little raw and betrayed, whether it was right or not.

Loyalty was such a touchy and painful subject; their betrayal of him, his of them when he ran to the Doctor. Granted, if he had though of it, when he thought of it, he hadn’t expected the situation as it had been. He expected to step through the doors, be welcomed or not, find out what he had done wrong, what he had done to get left. At no point had he pictured the end of the universe, or a year spent in pain, chains, and death. Certainly he never thought that Rose, their wonderful Rose, would be the cause, or that the Doctor would be so damaged, damaged enough to chain himself to a madman not to be alone, to no longer be the last of his kind.

Of course he expected to come back almost immediately, to be back with his team, his family, and the most important of all, his lover, his faithful Ianto. A year of pain and dying, and when he could spare a thought it was of getting back and making things right. There was something about repeated torture that made everyday things all the more special. The Doctor and that part of his life would always be special to him, but he couldn’t go back, only forward, make something new for himself.

“Sir…Jack?” the quiet voice cut through all the noise going on in his head. He could hear the concern in his lover’s voice as he got dragged back to the problem at hand. Ianto had moved around the desk and placed his coffee next to him while he was distracted. Now as he looked the young man moved away. Jack wanted to reach out for him, to pull him close and forget everything else, but that would come later. Talk first, that was something else he was learning.

Ianto had set the coffee next to Jack and moved around the desk as quickly as he could. It wasn’t that he was afraid of Jack, nor was he ashamed of what he had done. He wasn’t going to apologize for giving Gwen the information she needed. That did not make him feel any less guilty though. No matter how much he told himself it was for the best, and that she never would have given up, still he had betrayed Jack’s trust, again. Ianto wasn’t sure whether his Captain could take more betrayal, or that their relationship could either. Still, something about the look on Jack’s face, and the familiar admonition had given him hope.

Since he had returned Jack had been different, more committed both to the team and to him. It had not been easy though. The older man still had his moods, some of them as dark as midnight in a well, and there was still so much he was reluctant to share. Ianto was learning how to deal with those moods, and in return, Jack was opening up to him some, slowly. At least he had been.

“Why?”

“Why what?” Jack gave question for question, trying out of reflex to deflect an actual answer. But Ianto wasn’t Gwen and he wouldn’t be so easily put off. Rather than play the game, the young man merely sat across from his desk, quiet, waiting for his answers.

Jack looked anywhere, everywhere, fiddling with odd bits on his desk, even flipping through some paperwork he was trying to avoid, but he kept coming back to light on the still and beautiful man, drinking coffee and waiting. “It’s not easy, you wouldn’t under…”

“I’d like to try, if you let me. Come on Jack, I think we’re rather past the place where you try to hold it all yourself, aren’t we?”

“It’s my duty, my penance.”

“Penance for what? You have saved the world more times than I can think of.  What more can you do? What more do you think you need to do?” Ianto leaned forward in his chair, wanting to go to the man he could see burning with pain so close and yet so far away.

Jack allowed his eyes to wander around the office, stopping at the bits and pieces he had accumulated over more than a lifetime, taking in Ianto sitting patiently among it all, just drinking coffee. The young man deserved answers though he would never ask for them. For a long time Jack had taken advantage of that and of him. Now he couldn’t, he just couldn’t start rebuilding the wall that they had speny so much time tearing down since his return. It was all coming back, all those lives destroyed, and the pain that he had been unable to do enough.

“Do you know how long I have been at Torchwood?” he asked. It was mostly a rhetorical question. His records, the real ones, he had personally changed or erased in the computer when he had taken over, and as to the paper files, he was fairly sure they had been destroyed, or possibly buried somewhere in one of the many dark, dank holes in the archives.

“Not with any degree of accuracy, no.” Ianto’s expression was almost deadpan. “Though if you really want to hide things around here, you should remember that I handle the archives. I must say they are not in the best of shape. Besides, Jack, I know everything.” Ianto was trying to lighten the mood and he appreciated it. He even smiled, though it was pure reflex. His eyes, they were on another place, and another time.

“When I first came here, a long time ago, another life even…” he paused, as he tried to find the words as the other man just sat and watched him. “They didn’t even understand it, no one noticed if someone went missing, how would they? The people who came back, who were changed, they treated them like any other alien. I thought…I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t exactly come to Torchwood voluntarily. They offered me a choice and I wasn’t strong enough to resist.” Jack paused and reached for his coffee with a grim expression.

Ianto could sense the kind of night this was going to be. Rising from his chair, he went to the side table and poured two glasses of Jack’s best whiskey. He put one on the desk in front of the older man and pulled his chair around, closer to Jack, but not too close. He did not want him to feel closed in. As he set himself down he could see the look of gratitude that reassured him he had done right.

For a moment they sat and drank, then Jack started again. “I came to Cardiff to find the Doctor. Instead, Torchwood found me. You thought Yvonne was bad, but Alice could have given her a run for her money, all God, Queen and Empire, trying to make up for the fact that there was no place for her in that world. She and the others, they had no chance, there was no real life to hold on to. Back then all of them were locked in a world that loathed them for not fitting, all about status and stuck in limbo.”

“They asked you to work for them,” Ianto said, trying to fill in the blanks so that Jack could finish.

“They offered me a choice, work for Torchwood and earn some money to keep myself going until the Doctor came, or get locked away in the vaults, until they could figure out what I was.”

The revelation shocked him, though after Canary Wharf, it shouldn’t have done. Torchwood inspired both the good and the obsessive and considering what Jack had said, and what he had put together himself, that had been a long time ago, attitudes were different. “Jack…” he started, but he was waved off.

“My first mission, I was tracking one of those creatures that you guys called blowfish, just a teenager, really. When I brought him in they shot him, just like that, for nothing but being alien. I walked away, but there was no place to go. I was told…that doesn’t matter, besides, I thought perhaps I could do something, maybe make a change.”

“And you have,” Ianto said, quietly, laying a hand on the older man’s arm.

“Not enough, not fast enough. When they finally figured out who and what these people were, they kept them in the vaults with varying degrees of care and compassion and a lot of contempt. Outside there was nothing for them.  Most were non-functioning and if we had put them somewhere it would have been an institution. Even the cells were better, at least back then. Over the years there have been a few that could be ret conned and given new lives, even one that could return to her old life, but it isn’t enough, not nearly enough.” He paused to drain his glass and Ianto refilled it, bringing the decanter with him. It was that kind of night.

“Hearing Jonah scream, it brings it all back. Every one of them.  All the ones I couldn’t save, all the ones that can’t be saved. There is nothing…” And at that moment, Jack broke.

Ianto couldn’t believe the depths of pain he saw in the eyes of his lover. He reached out for the older man, pulling him into his arms. He knew there was nothing he could do to change things, all he could do was be there, and let Jack know he was no longer alone, that the burden did not have to be carried by himself.

 

It was later, as the two lay entangled in the hole in the ground that served as the Captain’s home, as Jack caressed the side of his lover’s face. The pain had passed, for the moment leaving him tired and a bit sad. “Promise me something, Ianto?”

“If it is in my power,” the younger man said, voice drowsy.

“Promise me you will never go there,” he whispered in the dark.

“Jack, I…”

“Promise me,” Jack repeated more urgently this time.

“But why?”

“Because I need you to be removed from it.  I need you to be able to keep myself sane, to lose myself with you. You have seen too much, don’t let me poison you any more than I have. Please?”

“Jack, you can’t protect me from all the pain that comes with this job.”

“Not completely, but let me do what I can. No matter how many times I have to go out there, let me be able to float back to you.” In the dark, Ianto tightened his hold on the man who had saved him when he needed saving, and knew that he didn’t need to answer.

**Author's Note:**

> These are old stories, previously posted else where. Please enjoy, read, review.


End file.
